Videoconferencing involves communication between two or more videoconferencing terminals. Each videoconferencing terminal is typically placed within a conference room or in an office. One or more conference participants may then gather in one or more conference rooms or offices, each of which may have a videoconferencing terminal. Subsequently, one of the conference participants at a so-called ‘near end’ conference room or office may initiate a videoconference call by dialing a number, e.g., an IP address, telephone number, or other form of identification, associated with one or more videoconferencing terminals of the so-called ‘far end’ conference room(s) or office(s). Upon receiving the videoconferencing request, the far end participant(s) may answer the call, thereby approving the establishment of a videoconferencing session. Finally, the near end videoconferencing terminal and the far end videoconferencing terminal(s) may establish a videoconference call that allows conference participants to communicate with each other.
Each conference room or office where the participant(s) are located may have a unique illumination environment, e.g., different levels of illumination, different patterns of illumination, different types of illuminants, different placement of sources of illumination (lights, windows, etc.), etc. For example, one office or conference room may have a first set of ceiling lights that produce a first pattern of illumination, and another office or conference room may have a second set of ceiling lights that produce a second pattern of illumination. Furthermore, one office or conference room may have one or more windows, and another office or conference room may have no windows. It may also be the case that one office or conference room has one or more illuminated display screens (e.g., computer monitors, television screens, projection screens, etc.) that are displaying content that is relevant to the participants of the videoconference, and which exhibit a much different illumination level than the surrounding parts of the office or conference room.
The pattern of illumination in a conference room or office may also be non-uniform. For example, an office or conference room may have walls illuminated by overhead lighting and a non-shaded window that passes light from outside. An office or conference room may have its lights dimmed so that a projection screen is more easily seen. In other words, there may be distinct illumination regions (e.g., having a wide dynamic range among them) within the scene that is being captured. Within this scene, there may also be objects of interest, e.g., a speaker or other video conference participant, which are moving around in front of (or within) the distinct illumination regions. These objects of interest may have respective brightness levels that are different from one or more of the other illumination regions in the scene (including the static and/or background regions of the scene), and which may benefit from being properly exposed.
Thus, there is need for improved high dynamic range image and video creation for scenes with widely-varying illumination environments and, in particular, scenes with one or more objects of interest for which a respective optimized exposure may be desired. For example, there is a need for apparatuses, methods, and computer readable media that can composite one or more properly-exposed objects of interest from a scene onto an HDR version of the rest of the scene—without experiencing significant latency or delay in the creation or transmission of the improved image and/or video stream.